Existing computer systems typically provide ways for a user of the computer system to access other systems, such as servers, on a network which is coupled to the other systems. For example, computer systems which run the Windows operating system or which run the Macintosh OS X operating system, such as OS 10.4, allow a user to gain access to files and folders through a network or through other types of communication media, wherein those files and folders are stored on a storage volume which is part of one or more other systems on the network. In order to gain access to such other systems, a user enters a name and a password, if the password is required, in order to gain access. This provides some security and control for the system which is providing access to its files and data. This security is provided by most modern operating systems which require that a user log into a data processing system as a particular user. A data processing system, such as a computer system, may have more than one user, each of which has a user account which defines the rights and permissions the user has with respect to the system and the files and folders on the system. The types of users include a guest user, named users (typically chosen by a user of the system) and one or more administrator users, which typically have greater permissions and rights with respect to access to and manipulation of files and folders and applications on a data processing system. A user can set up a data processing system to allow file sharing or screen sharing or other forms of sharing so that another user on another system can gain access to data stored, such as files, on the system set up to allow the sharing.
Existing data processing systems which allow such sharing require the user to go through a series of steps before they can gain access to files on another system which has been set up to allow access to those files on the other system. In other words, the user of the system seeking access manually logs into the other system by entering at least a user name and a password, if the password is required. This is true even if the user merely seeks to browse through files and folders on the other system by manually looking through one or more folders on the other system for the various files on the other system.